You made it sound as NI patches to the kernel are the ultimate software solution and the Linux kernels are very deficient.
It seems there has been a misunderstanding. NI does not patch the Linux kernel. NI provides Kernel modules that are compiled against the Linux kernel but do not change the Linux kernel in any way. What I described earlier has nothing to do with the Linux kernel being deficient, but instead why drivers must be compiled against the Linux kernel (there is no stable ABI), and why NI-VISA or more importantly NI-KAL may fail to compile against the latest and greatest Linux kernel (there is no stable API).
Seeing the fact that NI is not capable of officially supporting the most popular Linux distributions (Debian-based) nor the most used package management (DEB) creates serious doubts. But this is a discussion for another time.
Gauging the popularity of Linux distributions can be challenging. Looking at the numbers on
distrowatch.com does not always tell the whole story. For example National Instruments officially supports openSUSE, Red Hat Enterprise WS, and Mandriva. Of these three distributions the majority of our customers are using Red Hat Enterprise WS. This may be surprising since Red Hat is number 29 on distrowatch, and openSUSE and Mandriva are 2 and 5.
Also I think it is important to say what "officially supported" means. When we say a distribution is officially supported it means that we have run extensive tests to ensure that our software works on that distrubution. This makes it less likely that you will run into problems, and if for some reason you do have problems we will be happy to assist and provide support. NI is certainly capable of supporting different Linux distributions, but we must first evaluate if the demand for the Linux distribution is worth the cost of increased testing and development. It is important to recognize that we in no way limit you from using alternative distributions, and as I pointed out in my previous post several customers are already doing this, but it also means that you are on your own, since we have not tested that Linux distribution.
Do you think we could use LabVIEW 8.2 with NI-VISA 3.0 for a development station, and deploy the LabVIEW 8.2 RTE and the NI-VISA 3.0 RTE for our Debian and Debian-based (Mepis and K/Ubuntu) network?
I'm afraid that I do not have enough information to answer that question. I do not know what buses you are using with NI-VISA (serial, GPIB, VXI, PXI, USB, TCP/IP). I also do not know if LabVIEW or NI-VISA will work with Mepis and K/Ubuntu. If you already have a copy of LabVIEW 8.2 for Linux then you should be able to test with these distributions, and as I mentioned in my previous post you may be able to find other customers in these forums who are already using these products on Mepis and/or K/Ubuntu.
Shawn B.
Naional Instruments
